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METRO VANCOUVER -- A pharmacy assistant who filled fake Oxycontin prescriptions for a United Nation gangster has been sentenced to two years house arrest.

Baby Marie Antoinette Delos Santos was working at a North Vancouver Superstore when she provided 1,440 Oxycontin tablets for six prescriptions she knew were likely stolen.

She testified at her trial last year that she supplied the valuable black market pills in late 2011 and early 2012 "under duress" after being threatened by a man named Jesse Castillo, who told her he was a member of the notorious UN Gang.

A B.C. Supreme Court jury rejected her claim of duress and convicted Delos Santos last month on six counts of trafficking OxyContin, also known as Oxycodone.

And on Friday, Justice Shelley Fitzpatrick handed the 27-year-old mother a conditional sentence despite the Crown's arguments for a jail term.

"I have found this a most difficult decision. Valid arguments have been advanced for both a custodial sentence and a conditional sentence order," Fitzpatrick said in her reasons, released Monday.

She said that Delos Santos was remorseful, didn't profit from the trafficking and had no prior criminal record.

But she also rejected Delos Santos' claim that she feared violent retribution if she did not comply with Castillo.

"I am unable to find on a balance of probabilities that Ms. Delos Santos was threatened by Castillo or that she has proven that she acted based on threats from Castillo or the others," Fitzpatrick said.

The judge said text messages and phone records show that Delos Santos carried on repeated exchanges with Castillo, instigating some of them.

"I do consider it likely that Ms. Delos Santos' naiveté and foolishness brought her to the point where these criminals were able to secure her cooperation by inveigling themselves into her life, which in turn allowed them to pressure her to fill the prescriptions," Fitzpatrick said. "Notwithstanding, I consider that she bears a great deal of responsibility as to the reason - or the 'why' - she eventually committed these offences."

Delos Santos, who came to Canada as a young child from the Philippines, had worked at the Superstore for seven years when she said Castillo called her, claiming to be a friend of a friend and asking for her help.

Between Dec. 23, 2011 and Jan. 17, 2012, she filled six prescriptions for Castillo and another man.

"These prescriptions were from a stolen prescription pad belonging to Dr. Donald Scaman who practices in Abbotsford," Fitzpatrick noted.

In mid-January, a Superstore pharmacist noticed something was amiss and called the doctor, who said he had not written the prescriptions.

When Delos Santos was interviewed by store security and later the RCMP, she admitted she had filled the prescriptions, but stressed she was fearful of UN gang reprisal.

Castillo was never charged, according to the online court data base.

Fitzpatrick said the pills provided by Delos Santos would have sold on the street for more than $115,000.

"There is a flourishing black market for OxyContin at the street level, both for people who want to relieve withdrawal symptoms and also by those `recreational' users. Typically, the drugs enter the black market after a theft from a pharmacy," she said.

"It is well known that gangs are involved in the distribution of OxyContin."

She said while Delos Santos "feels great remorse and that she is ashamed of her actions," she went on to get another pharmacy job without telling her new employer about the charges she was facing.

And Fitzpatrick said Delos Santos only told her husband that she might go to jail last week on the eve of the sentencing.

"Ms. Delos Santos has a long way to go towards accepting her responsibility for her actions in her community," she said.

The sentence also includes 240 hours of community service, a 10-year firearms ban and a prohibition on owning a cell phone.

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